Chapter 1191 Piano Competition
The day after the opening ceremony, Liu? accompanied Li Xiaoru to Bolzano, the venue of the piano competition, still taking the same private plane, and the whole journey took less than 30 minutes.
The two got off the plane and rushed to the venue designated by the competition committee. There were 30 finalists in total. Li Xiaoru was the last one to arrive and the only one who was not accompanied by a mentor. But she is very famous. A video of her street piano performance not long ago is still circulating on the Internet. How could the piano competition committee members who were also in Italy not know about the red carpet ceremony last night?
Besides, Li Xiaoru was accompanied by a Han Dynasty princess. Young pianists from all over the world who were waiting to listen to the performance arrangements and draw lots all saluted them. Among them were teenage piano geniuses, disciples of the world's top pianists, and students of top music schools. In terms of music background, Li Xiaoru, who was born as an internet celebrity, was probably the worst.
Li Xiaoru didn't feel nervous at all. Maybe it was because she had just walked on a red carpet surrounded by stars, talked with superstars like Alan, and Liu Yu was there to give her courage.
The final is divided into three rounds. The first round was held at the Bolzano City Concert Hall that afternoon. The competition was in the form of solo performance and contestants were free to choose their own songs. The organizing committee did not restrict the difficulty, but the difficulty would be taken into consideration when scoring.
Li Xiaoru had already reported her piece in advance, Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 3", which is known as "the most difficult piece to play in the world". Under the guidance of the instructors, other contestants progressed step by step from easy to difficult levels, but Li Xiaoru went all out at the beginning and challenged the SSS level.
Her idea was very simple. After the first round of competition, 20 people were eliminated from 30. If she passed, she would be in the top 10. Apart from anything else, at least it would be safe for her to stay in Juilliard to study for a master's degree. She would also be able to face the next two rounds of competition more calmly.
The other contestants do not have such a heavy psychological burden. They are students of famous schools and famous teachers. No one stipulates that they must enter the top 10 in exchange for any honor. They have time to take it slowly, but Li Xiaoru does not!
No matter how difficult a piece is, it all comes down to proficiency, technique and hand speed. Li Xiaoru has been practicing this piece very hard recently, playing it at least 10 times a day on average, and even in her dreams at night, her fingers are still moving. After practicing to this level, she doesn't believe she can't pass it!
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Hard work pays off, and with good luck, Li Xiaoru drew number 27. As we all know, in art competitions, the later a contestant performs, the higher the score will be. This is because at the beginning of the competition, the judges are not clear about the overall situation of the contestants and dare not give high scores at will, so contestants who perform earlier often have their scores lowered.
Therefore, Li Xiaoru successfully passed the first round of competition, but just barely, and ranked 10th.
There were 12 judges on site, each with a score of 10. After removing the highest and lowest scores, the average score was calculated. Li Xiaoru's score was 9.03, only 0.03 points higher than the next one. Three judges gave Li Xiaoru very low scores, but fortunately two judges gave her a high score of 9.8 at the same time, which brought her score back up.
Li Xiaoru knew one of them, who was the visiting professor at the Juilliard School who had helped her advance to the preliminary round without going through the auditions. The other judge was a pianist from France. Li Xiaoru had heard of her name and had seen her performance videos online. Perhaps for this reason, when the host introduced the judges at the opening, she felt that the female judge looked very familiar.
The second round of competition will be held three days later. The repertoire for this round will be decided by the judges, which means that all 10 contestants will play the same piece of music. As for the piece of music, it will not be announced until the day of the competition. In this way, the difficulty is directly raised to a higher level. Don't think that everyone is on the same starting line just because they are taking the same test. On the contrary, this will expose the shortcomings of those with weaker abilities. There is no harm without comparison.
Moreover, she didn't know the repertoire, didn't know the range, and didn't know how to train in a targeted manner during these three days. Li Xiaoru began to get nervous again, but the news about her in China was hot searched. Because Liu? filmed Li Xiaoru's performance in the first round of the competition with his mobile phone and posted it on Weibo, with the caption, "Keep going, Xiaoru, you are the best!"
In the video, Li Xiaoru is wearing a backless red evening gown, sitting in front of a black piano, playing the keyboard with full concentration, her flexible fingers are faster than a robot, making people dazzled. Netizens are not professionals, but seeing this high-end performance and Li Xiaoru's pianist style, they think she is amazing and think she will definitely get full marks, first place, and bring glory to the country.
Liu Xiaoru announced the results on Weibo, saying that Li Xiaoru was ranked 10th and entered the second round at the end. Netizens were dissatisfied and left messages asking Liu Xiaoru if there was any shady dealings in the competition or racial discrimination.
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